


how can i let you go?

by fangsty



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Fantasizing, M/M, Masturbation, One Shot, One-Sided Attraction, POV Second Person, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, Voyeurism, mentions of period-typical homophobia, tom falls in love first imo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:27:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22524001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangsty/pseuds/fangsty
Summary: ...you felt a twinge of strange unpleasant feelings and decided to never ask him about them again.Except. They weren’t strange, or unfamiliar. It didn’t take you long to recognize them as heartache. Sadness. Envy? No. Jealousy? Yes. Not of him, but…forhim.
Relationships: Tom Blake/William Schofield
Comments: 14
Kudos: 60





	how can i let you go?

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't intend to write this in 2nd person, it just happened.

You are Lance Corporal Tom Blake and you’d been in the army for months now. You joined late in the game because you’d only turned old enough to be drafted earlier this year. You were never as suited for it as your brother and late father, but you were honored to finally be able to help England in her time of need. In the beginning, you were a chubby and naive lad, but you’re satisfied to say you’re much more savvy in the art of war and have been gaining stamina and steadily dropping weight, albeit mostly due to the terrible military food. You were a man now. 

That’s what you thought, at least. No one else in your damned regiment seemed to agree. But it’s alright. Your immediate superiors recognized your skills in map reading and routing, and you were occasionally put to use helping guide your company around the territory. It’s how you made your first promotion from private to corporal within a mere six months of duty. Your brother Joe, a lieutenant in the 2nd Devonshires, would be proud of you. 

You would like to say you were friends with everyone, and you were, in the most casual sense. They appreciated your humor and got enjoyment from your storytelling skills, but none of them were close to you, or even tried to get that close to you. The exception being William Schofield.

You didn’t think much of Schofield upon your first meeting. The man was a few years your senior, at the same rank, still young, but more experienced than you. A survivor of the battle of the Somme, he had earned a medal at some point, you heard. On the outside, he came off a bit distant and impersonable but underneath he was kind, intelligent, and almost as funny as yourself in that dry, deadpan way of his. He was also cynical and reserved, basically your opposite, but soon after he had become your best friend within the unit and vice versa. 

* * *

When you casually asked him “Got a woman back home, Scho?” he raised his eyebrows at the nickname but didn’t answer, and you didn’t think anything of it. 

You awoke early one morning and noticed him staring at grainy black and white pictures of what could only be his wife and children, you felt a twinge of strange unpleasant feelings and decided to never ask him about them again. 

Except. They weren’t strange, or unfamiliar. It didn’t take you long to recognize them as heartache. Sadness. Envy? No. Jealousy? Yes. Not of him, but… _for_ him. The photographs, they were secret-but-not-actually-secret, protected in a pretty decorative metal tin. Everyone, everyone except _you,_ had known or figured out what it was, but no one asked because Schofield doesn’t like to talk about it. You were simply blind to it. Subconsciously, yes, but willingly, to protect your own feelings. 

From then on, the little details of Lance Corporal William Schofield stood out in sharp contrast to your dreary green and brown and grey world. Like how deep the blue of his eyes were, and how they sometimes had a haunted look in them. How his short reddish brown hair curled slightly where it had grown just long enough. How little clusters of freckles would appear on his face when they spent too long in the sun but disappear again when you were bogged down in dank trenches during cloudy days, and how his cheeks dimpled when he laughed. How he centered you in all this madness by being realistic and keeping you cautious. You were sure he indirectly saved you more than once by pulling you back from your own recklessness. 

It was sobering. You knew what happened to men like that who got caught in the army. Even the civilian world was not much better. But you were good at hiding. You could hide it just as well until this war ended and you went your separate ways—or until one of you, or both of you, died.

* * *

That didn’t stop you from indulging once in a while. No one could see inside your head; you were safe there. Scho had his moments too. Moments where he was wound up and couldn’t stand it anymore. All men serving in the Great War needed to unwind, needed some release, or they might just go insane. 

Cramped shared quarters on rickety cots during the dead of night was where men took the opportunity. Usually there was no getting away for privacy. Sometimes they needed it, right then, where everyone could potentially hear, and everyone pretended not to hear, at least while it was happening. You got so used to it after a while, you could easily tune out the sound of anyone wanking and go right to sleep. 

Aside from Scho, whom you deliberately don’t. 

He’s so quiet, much subtler than anyone else. Thankfully, your cot is within a meter of his. You listen close to the way his breathing changes. Slow and deep at first, then progressively ragged and uneven. You could barely hear an indistinct word being uttered every time. It was after the fourth listen of your eavesdropping that you pieced together a name: Beth. Perhaps short for Elizabeth, you wondered. 

Scho always ended with a soft, tender moan. It could be heartbreaking, if you didn’t find it so sexy. You replayed that sound over and over in your mind until it’s memorized and save it for another day. You’re very careful to never get off at the same time or even the same night as him no matter how tempting. Can’t risk it.

When you do take the time to relieve yourself, you flushed red under the covers at the idea that Scho might have heard you, yet it simultaneously added to your arousal. Without exception, you faced away from him to save yourself the potential embarrassing situation of him wide awake, gazing right at you. Before you even touched yourself, you started off thinking of what you imagined during Scho’s last session. 

Initially there was an image of Scho embracing his wife, but when you brought your hand around yourself, that image flickered away and changed to you in the wife’s position. You imagined him above you, looking at you affectionately. A pale hand of long fingers, rough with the calluses of war, cupped your cheek. Then he’s kissing you, he’s touching you, he’s holding you, _he’s in you_. It’s a facsimile of the real thing, but it’s all you got. 

You, your fantasy you, made him come first, marked by the same noise you’ve heard gasping from his lips.

* * *

The mission to prevent Colonel MacKenzie’s attack on goes from bad to worse. Will painfully cuts his palm on barbed wire. You accidentally knock that hand into an open rotting corpse. Thank god you have some bandages on you. You hoped you could get the 2nd Devons fast enough to treat it properly. 

Then the damn rat nearly buries Will alive. Your refusal to give up on him pays off. The trip-wire bomb blasts rubble all over him and dust into his eyes, but he’s otherwise unharmed. 

You cross no man’s land into a gorgeous, unmarred field and think it’ll be alright the rest of the way. 

Until it isn’t. 

A German pilot stabs you in the gut, mercilessly, considering you were saving him. Dear Will, just like you did with him, tries so hard to save you. When he still thinks it’s possible, he maintains a sense a calm steady professionalism, no matter how he feels, to keep you calm too. 

But he can’t save you. He can’t carry you. You’re too far. 

The only comfort is that Will is here with you. You’re not alone in your last moments. There’s a lot of pain, but you’re still able to tell him your last wishes. Reassure him of the mission, _the mission that will save your brother_. You tell him to personally write to your mother. Above you he’s holding back tears. 

You almost tell him you loved him. Love him? Loved him. Almost. It’s on the tip of your tongue. All the novels you’ve read gave the impression it would be romantic, a last confession of love. 

But you just can’t spit it out. It would change his simple feelings to something complicated and twisted. At best he would just accept it, but at worst it would taint his entire perception of you. Instead of a brave soldier and dear friend that saved his life, you would be… 

No. You won’t say it. You’ll preserve the ideal memory of you for him. 

Black crowds your vision. It’s scary, you’re drifting in and out of consciousness, but it’s not all bad. You’re going back to your Pa, who tragically died when you were young. To your beloved old dog, who passed from old age years ago. To your beautiful house in Essex. To a Will that loves you.

The war is gonna end soon. Will is gonna make it. He’s gonna survive and go back to his family. 

It’ll be okay. 

**Author's Note:**

> I've noticed that some people have elected to entirely ignore Will's wife and kids or hilariously interpret them as relatives instead. That is cowardice, my friends. Bring on the cheating and infidelity! (If by chance I get inspired to write more, I am definitely gonna address it heh.)


End file.
